Tag Archives: assessment

Most of our common assumptions about assessment are wrong, perpetuating the poorly performing system in which we are trapped

This essay is an extended version of the talk I gave at the Bryanston Education Summit, on 6 June 2018. I must admit that at nearly 15,000 words, it is no quick read. But I hope you will be prepared to take the time to look at it, first, because I think you will find many of the arguments that it contains to be original and perhaps surprising; and second, because I believe that in presenting a carefully argued case against many of our current orthodoxies about assessment, it suggests how we need to move in a radical new direction in our search for solutions to our current problems with assessment.

“So favourable are the circumstances to the launch of such a significant new initiative that if it does not happen I will join a well-known member of the Liberal Democrat Party in eating my hat”.

Well, no such initiative has been forthcoming and, while Lord Ashdown reneged immediately on his hat-eating promise, I have not been intending to cop out so easily. During my Christmas shopping, I could not help eyeing up the hat department for something that might prove reasonably digestible.

But the new year has brought news that offers at least a glimmer of hope that such a drastic step might be avoided. The government is introducing a computer-delivered test of multiplication tables as part of the KS2 SATS tests.

How significant is this initiative? Is it an irrelevance or a false dawn? Or could it be the first, faint pulse of a new government policy on education technology?

Tim Oates’, Chair of the Expert Panel responsible for the recent review of the National Curriculum, has posted an interesting video about assessing education without levels. I agree with large parts of the video but suggest that in some respects, Oates’ model is unhelpful

I am grateful to Harry Webb (@websofsubstance) for the link to Tim Oates’ recent video explaining the report of the Curriculum Review body, which resulted in the abolition of levels in UK schools.

No-one, either individual or committee, is going to get everything right. The first thought that occurs to me from viewing Oates’ critique of our current assessment regime is “how could people—how could the whole system—get it so wrong last time round?”—and if people got it so wrong last time, how can we be so confident that they will get it right this time round? Those who produce recommendations for politicians to implement need to be very cautious when the harm caused by mistakes at this level can be so great. Even if the drift of those recommendations is substantially correct, everyone involved in such processes should welcome a continuing debate, which is the only way that we will avoid spending the next couple of decades up yet another blind alley.